Owners of former Iron City Brewery face another code violation

The owners of the former Iron City Brewing Co. have incurred another violation at the historic Lawrenceville property for taking down 20 feet of the smokestack without a building permit.

"There will be a penalty," said Marissa Doyle, a spokeswoman for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. She said the Bureau of Building Inspection was contacted this morning and sent an inspector to the site, where he told the owner the work could not continue without a permit.

This is the second time the city has had to remind Collier Development that it needed a permit.

Tim Frew, Collier's project manager, said today the city issued him a certificate of appropriateness "which allowed me to do smokestack restoration, capping and installation of lightning protection and that's what I plan to do."

Every certificate of appropriateness must be followed by a permit to do site modifications of historic properties.

Mr. Frew said he "took the bad section down, the part full of holes and loose bricks. We are working on a plan to replace the loose bricks and the stuff that is damaged."

Collier Development, which bought the property in February, was fined $20,000 in district court in August for demolishing buildings that were supposed to have been protected by the historic designation in 2010. In that case, Collier did not have a demolition permit.